Saturday, December 6, 2014

Pantone's 2015 Color of the Year Marsala on Ginkgo Leaf Earrings

I challenged myself to use Pantone's 2015 color of the year Marsala,
something of a muted brownish scarlet that reminds me of spilled red wine on an off white table cloth or worse, dried blood.

I
think a brighter or darker shade of red, like pomegranate or scarlet would have been a great improvement over Marsala. I
wonder if designers will tend towards brightening this up a bit. If they really wanted a wine, I think Chardonnay would have been a better choice with its warm sunny yellows, but hey, they didn't ask me. Anyway, here's my first pair of Marsala Earrings with golden bronze. Here I went with more of a cranberry for my Marsala and then browned it up a bit by adding Bronze. Other colors include rich dark blue, purple and forest.

This pair I made second, and used cool gray and pale blue. Here, the brown seed beads are a bit browner than Marsala, but the sapphires are pretty spot on.

Both pairs have sparkling faceted sapphires to add just a touch of twinkle.

I predict that Marsala is
going to be a tough color for designers in 2015. What do you think? Do
you like Marsala? I think it's going to take me a few months to warm up to it. I guess I like it with the blue and gray. It feels sort of modern-ish.

The tutorial is available in my Etsy shop if you want your ears to be a la mode, superchic! Click on the photos to go to the listing. Thanks for looking.

4 comments:

Marsala seems like a good color for boots or other leather things, or maybe for pants, but I think it will be a tough color for tops, dresses, and non-leather accessories. I do like how it looks in the 2nd pair of earrings you made. I think that shade of blue is a good complement.